Video/audio works in AmarecTV, but not in VirtualDub?

[lijeu]

Hi everyone,
New user and first post here. Trying to adventure into this video project so I can finally get it all done and be freeeeee!

Here's some of my setup info:
- JVC VCR (SR-V101US)
- Cypress AVT-8129 Composite TBC
- ATI TV Wonder HD 600

PC:
- Windows 10 Pro
- i7-8700k 3.7Ghz, 64GB RAM

When I plugged the ATI card in, the device automatically showed up as installed under "Sound, video, and game controllers" under Device Manager, but I still did a google search for the ATI drivers for my x64 compat and grabbed the drivers from here and installed automatic setup anyway: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...i-600-usb.html

I am able to connect everything and verify that I can do a full audio and video recording in amarecTV, but I've heard that VirtualDub 1.9.11 is still preferred for most people who are doing conversion projects.

I've got both the entirety of the AmarecTV & VirtualDub directories away from my OS, in a secondary SSD.

I am unable to get preview video or audio to show up in VirtualDub, even though I can see the hardware show up in the listed devices. When I attempt to Capture File, I am able to see "Connected to capture device: ATI TV Wonder 600 USB 2.0 (DirectShow)" in the bottom footer of the application. I have tried disconnecting and reconnecting via the "Video" menu, and I've attempted to record anyways to see if anything would capture. No dice. The application looks blank for me: no blue screen, no video, no apparent connection to a video screen. Any ideas why this might be so? I've read through the sanlyn VirtualDub guide, and didn't see anything super obvious for me.

I did read in some other forums that people have issues with this on Windows 10 machines, so I don't know if that's just the reason why VirtualDub is just out of luck for me.

Thank you for any advice.

[hodgey]

Did you try virtualdub2? There was a change in one of the windows update that broke the display in Virtualdub, Virtualdub2 was update to accommodate, so it may be a better option than the old versions on windows 10 as it's still being actively developed.

[lijeu]

I just loaded up VirtualDub2, and yes--looks like I'm getting video now. OK, I'm going to try doing some test captures now. I noticed that in my test recording with Amarec, I have audio input a few frames ahead of the video. Unsure if it's drifting or if it's a consistent de-sync. Hoping VirtualDub will be better for this.

-- merged --

Oof, comparing two 30 minute tests:

1. AmarecTV: Seems to give me a pretty close "WYSIWG" audio & video sync, though I feel like when I just watch in the window without recording, the audio feels slightly ahead of my video, and what I get on the capture looks similarly slightly desynced (I can't tell of there's drift - feels fairly consistent throughout but I'm not super sure.)

2. VirtualDub2: Ooof, my first test was awful. I got even more audio drift with VirtualDub than I did with my prior setup (no TBC + the elgato video capture card), so I need to continue down my path of figuring out solving this puzzle. 50795 frames (0 dropped), so maybe software? I monitored my machine during the whole time and my CPU never got above 2% usage.

-- merged --

I forced my mismatched VirtualDub2 avi's audio & video length output to match via Djard's instructions, but wondering if this is considered a good method? https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/...ft#post1925392

[latreche34]

Try CaptureFlux it's a simplified capture program that can capture lossless.

[lordsmurf]

Very often, preview issues are a DirectX issue, disable that in the main VirtualDub options (not capture mode options). Then use Preview mode, not Overlay, in capture mode.

If your system has dual graphics cards (something I've only seen with Nvidia), then instructing Win7/8/10 to use the onboard graphics instead of the secondary is what can resolve odd preview display issues. I forget offhand where that is, but it's in the Windows display settings (control panel).

Audio sync issues are almost always dropped frames issues. You need to post screenshots of every VirtualDub setting.

VirtualDub2 causes dropped frames and audio sync drift. The capture mode got worse, not better. It's entirely unusable for every capture card that I've tried to date, on multiple systems. VirtualDub FilterMod (early version naming of VirtualDub2) was more closely based on 1.10.x, which had issues, but at least worked for some cards.

AmarecTV is really crappy.

CaptureFlux looks interesting, but I'm not seeing a dropped frames counter. That's an automatic "no".

No, "Djard's instructions" are not an option. Fix the capture, don't try to fix the messed-up captured file. And that will never work anyway, you're chasing your tail.

Win10 "does stuff", too much stuff, all the time. You need to disconnect all networking, either turn off WiFi or yank out the ethernet cord. Disable background software. For example, these days we have lots of video conference calls on news channels. It really irritates me when you're watching an interview, and chimes/alarms start sounding while watching. Neither the interviewee nor the interviewer pay it any attention. But stuff likes that messes with capturing video. And likely, it's why so many streams are choppy at times (not merely bad/slow internet connections at play). This is the 2nd reason that Win10 sucks as a video OS, the 1st is updates that nuke various drivers every 6 months.

[hodgey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

VirtualDub2 causes dropped frames and audio sync drift. The capture mode got worse, not better. It's entirely unusable for every capture card that I've tried to date, on multiple systems. VirtualDub FilterMod (early version naming of VirtualDub2) was more closely based on 1.10.x, which had issues, but at least worked for some cards.

Hm, I've never had any issues with capturing with Virtualdub2 other than it being buggy with the BM intensity. Used it on Win10, Win7 and XP with more than one capture device.

[lijeu]

Turning off directX doesn't immediately work to bring back Overlay or Preview display. I have one GPU (NVIDIA 1070Ti), but I'll look to see if I can attempt on-board graphics.

-- merged --

Continuing my adventure...

- needed to go to BIOS to enable my on-board graphics card
- updated my onboard driver to see it in my Device Manager; shows up as Intel(R) UHD Graphics 630
- now able to see the following settings to force VirtualDub1.9.11 to use on-board instead (image below)

Unfortunately still seeing no video. Tried a test capture anyways (maybe Preview was broken?), but no, the ouput .avi is just a black screen + the VHS's audio.



- Just noticed that when I looked at the preferences again, the prior disabling of DirectX didn't save, so I made sure to save those settings and restarted the app.
- I now see a black screen (which wasn't visible to me before!)

Maybe I am closer now...

[lijeu]

Hmm, my experience with the "black box" is mysterious. Since the above experience, I have not been able to get the black box to appear again. I'll look around to see what other people have experienced.

-- merged --

I have a blue VCR screen!? but I am scared about why??

Things I tried:

1. Changing the Device to the Microsoft WDM Image Capture. A 100% repro on a BSOD when hitting OK. (Tried three times)


2. Tried grabbing ffvdub install per this link: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...r-showing.html Nope.

3. Saw some threads with people giving up with the ATI 600 and go with VC500, but since I have my elgato capture card with me, I figured I'd run that test again. Tried unplugging my ATI card, and put back my Elgato card (to check if it was a ATI compatability thing). Nope, still same issue.

4. Back in with ATI. Moved the plug from 3.1 to 3.0. (Sadly don't have any 2.0 ports.) Still same.

5. Verified that all of my futzing hasn't broken something else -- was able to do a quick check in CaptureFlux and AmarecTV, and everything is still displaying there. Okay, at least I didn't screw anything else up in this process.

6. Tried renaming my directory from "Z:\VirtualDub1.9.11 + Filters" to "Z:\VirtualDub1.9" per this link: https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/389608-No-preview-window-on-capture
I also went into my GPU settings (to change the link of the VirtualDub.exe forced on-board graphics setting) ahead of testing. And I got a successful connection!? (I'm curious what would happen if I had it running without the forced on-board... but too scared to do that test right now.)

What the? Why did this work?

[lijeu]

Ah. Damn spoke too soon.

- If I try to record, I lose image after a few frames (the output AVI has similar recording of having content for a few frames before going to black)
- If I move the application, I lose image.
- If I close BDARemote, I lose image.

Strangely, I have a 100% repro on this:
- renaming the directory does get me back into a state where I can visually see Preview again (even without going into the forced on-board settings, but as soon as I do something above, I lose image
- if I rename the directory to something I have named it before, it won't display any preview (same broken state that started this all)
- if I rename it with something I've never named it before, it'll give me the blue VCR screen until I do one of the actions above.

Is this possibly something with registries? I am at a real loss.

Ugh, I think my options are either trying to make AmarecTV or VirtualDub2 work, or try to go through my old parts and see if I can repurpose an older PC. I think I have an older Win7 machine that I might be able to reformat with XP, but it's still likely based on the i5 chipset. I don't think I have anything pre-i5 gen right now.

[hodgey]

There may be some registry settings that are tied to the virtualdub program path, either in the app itself or something with directshow.

For 1.9, you could try Setting video to preview, chosing "save current display mode as default", and re-starting the app, but I don't know if that will help.

Did you try to adjust and play around with the timing settings in virtualdub2 per the guide as with 1.9? May also be worth seeing if the elgato has the same sync issues with amarectv and virtualdub2.

[lijeu]

I've made no progress on getting VDub to show image or record on my machine, so I'm going to try breaking down my husband's Win7 machine and see if I can reformat it to XP SP2 (as I've read in this forum). If that doesn't work, then I really don't have any other ideas, so I'll probably try to make AmarecTV work since the records are coming back better than VirtualDub2's audio drift.

Now, I have to figure out how to acquire XP SP2 again, since it's been years since I've thrown out all of those CDs. Seems like my google searches are suggesting people acquire copies by getting laptops. Oof. Any other suggestions of what other folks do to downgrade back to XP?

[hodgey]

If it already has Win7 on it, I would try with that first.

[lijeu]

Hi friends,
I wanted to update everyone on my journey. It sounded like everyone was pushing me away from using a Windows 10 machine if I was insistent on trying to get Virtual Dub to work. I gave up on everything above with my setup:

Capture Workflow
- JVC VCR (SR-V101US)
- Cypress AVT-8129 Composite TBC
- ATI TV Wonder HD 600

PRIOR PC SETUP (FAILED)
- Windows 10 Pro
- i7-8700k 3.7Ghz, 64GB RAM

Today I am on a different machine:
- Took my old machine that had Win8 on it (AMD 8Core 3.1Ghz, 8 Gb RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250)
- Reformatted it with Windows7 Professional, Service Pack 1 (32-bit OS)
- NOT connected to the internet
- With a fresh OS, I installed:

1. NVIDIA 342.01 Win7 for Video Card
2. ATI Catalyst Media Center Install Manager through ISO + Gizmo Central (this installed the C++ redistributable, USB Video Driver)
3. VirtualDub1.9.3 + Filters

Some progress:

• I am able to load up VirtualDub, and I successfully get image and can capture with the default mpeg output and watch it via Windows Media Player. YAY. Progress over my Win10 machine.
• There still seems to be a little bit of audio-video desync with the basic setup (video is slightly ahead of audio now), but I only tried with the default settings, so I figure I should try getting some codecs running per some of the guides on this website.
• I just tried installing Huffyuv AVI codec ("installed" by right clicking the .inf)
• I did a test capture with huffyuv enabled as my selected compression, and when I open the file it produces. It crashes my Windows Media Player (it's the only thing I have right now?), and the details of the crash says wmplayer.exe with something in the problem signature saying "fault module name: huffyuv.dll"
• A few google searches, and it says that this is indeed an issue with dlls?
• I open up VirtualDub again, and I noticed this time a message "Autoloaded 54 filter(s) (1 failed).
• In the log it says: "Plugins: Failed to load "C:\Program Files\VirtualDub 1.9.11 + Filters\plugins\ffvdub.vdf" : Error initializing module "C:\Program Files\VirtualDub 1.9.11 + Filters\plugins\ffvdub.vdf"
• If I try to load the .avi through VirtualDub, I get a Windows Explorer message about "COM Surrogate" crashing.

Any ideas here?

Should I give up on this OS? I've thought about the fact that I've already reformatted, and maybe I should just go all the way to Windows XP?

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lijeu

6. Tried renaming my directory from "Z:\VirtualDub1.9.11 + Filters" to "Z:\VirtualDub1.9" per this link:

Mine is C:\Portable\VirtualDub19\

Quote:

I also went into my GPU settings (to change the link of the VirtualDub.exe forced on-board graphics setting)

That is required for some systems.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lijeu

NVIDIA 342.01 Win7 for Video Card

This card my mess with overlay, so forcing onboard can be needed. I've run into this issue when setting up some high-end Dell laptops with capture card (not just ATIs).

Some progress:

Quote:

I am able to load up VirtualDub, and I successfully get image and can capture with the default mpeg

MPEG? Huh?

Quote:

There still seems to be a little bit of audio-video desync with the basic setup (video is slightly ahead of audio now), but I only tried with the default settings, so I figure I should try getting some codecs running per some of the guides on this website.

The guide only covers basics. Your issue is no longer basic. Read it, but it may need some tweaks not discussed. I need to see a screencap of your capture timing settings.

Also, sometime VirtualDub Filtermod 40121 (pre-VirtualDub2) can work better, at times, some systems. This would be a candidate situation to try it.

Quote:

It crashes my Windows Media Player (it's the only thing I have right now?),

Install VLC. Everything crashes WMP.

Quote:

I open up VirtualDub again, and I noticed this time a message "Autoloaded 54 filter(s) (1 failed).
In the log it says: "Plugins: Failed to load "C:\Program Files\VirtualDub 1.9.11 + Filters\plugins\ffvdub.vdf" : Error initializing module "C:\Program Files\VirtualDub 1.9.11 + Filters\plugins\ffvdub.vdf"

For now, this doesn't matter. Just delete that VDF file.

Quote:

Should I give up on this OS? I've thought about the fact that I've already reformatted, and maybe I should just go all the way to Windows XP?

Win7 and WinXP are both fine.

[lijeu]

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

I'm back on my video project during this weekend! I only have a few hours a month to be able to dedicated to problem-solving my issues, so I appreciate everyone's patience with my "bringing thread back from the dead" behavior.

I'm going to try continuing progress on my current Win7 setup, and I'm trying some stuff today to see if I can troubleshoot my issues. If it doesn't work out today, I may try going down the rabbit hole of going to WinXP tomorrow.

Some stuff I'm trying today:
1. Renamed my folder to C:\VirtualDub19\
2. Deleting the ffvdub.vdf file for now
3. Installing VLC onto my Win7 32 bit machine

Some issues I see so far:
- Recording with Compression (Huffyuv v2.1.1 - CCESP Patch v.0.2.2) results with audio playback but no video. VLC tells me: "Codec not supported: VLC could not decode the format "HFYU" (Huff YUV Video)
- Recording with no compression gives me a proper video, though the audio is a few frames ahead of the video. To my ears/eyes, it at least seems like the audio consistently comes in a few frames early throughout the recorded video, but I only did a 20 minute test, so I think I need to do a long test to see if it drifts apart for longer videos. Is there something in virtualdub I should play with or is the standard practice to use editing software to line it up manually?
- File size looks like about 1 Gb per minute. I think that is standard based on what I've read on this forum for no compression.

Current software setup:
- I am recording with the "Capture Video" button since I don't know what the difference between F5 or F6 is yet.
- I am recording with default Capture timing options for 1.9.11 atm.
- I am recording blind without Overlay because the CPU usage difference looks like 3-10% vs. 50-70%. I don't know if going blind helps with making audio-video sync better.

Should I spend my time figuring out whether my audio desync settings are good first or should I be figuring out my Codecs first to save file size?

-- merged --

I just did a two hour video test with all of the same settings in the prior post, and it looks like my audio is fairly consistently ahead of the video throughout the entire record. I could take the resulting .avi and do the edit in audio, but I'm not sure if there's anything else I should try before using this as my default setting?

Here are my default settings:
default.png

*Also, I upgraded to Premium Membership for the year since I've been getting a ton of help from these forums.

[lordsmurf]

Try it with disable resync.